Static Zombie

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

When Sports Night first aired, I ignored it. I don't care about sports themselves, let alone television shows about sports. A television show about a television show about sports? Please. I'm not into politics either, but I gave The West Wing a chance anyway-- and discovered that it actually made the world of politics interesting. So when Sports Night popped up in reruns on Comedy Central, I gave it a shot. Turns out it wasn't really about a sports show at all-- that was just the backdrop for a very sharply-written comedy. This season Aaron Sorkin's taken the ensemble hour-long drama format of The West Wing, crossed it with the behind-the-scenes-of-a-television-show setting of Sports Night, and produced Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip-- a show that threatens to crumble under the considerable weight of its own gravitas.

The West Wing was essentially a wish-fulfillment show, offering a look at what it might be like to have incredibly smart, dedicated people in the White House committed to making the country a better place without kowtowing to big business. Martin Sheen's President Jed Bartlett was always the smartest guy in the room, backed by a staff of brilliant and preternaturally quick-witted over-achievers. It offered viewers a glimpse into a mysterious world that affects us all yet about which we know very little. The White House backdrop opened the doors to provocative, relevant storylines that often had real-world analogues, and viewers could play "what-if?" along with the show. It was fantasy-- no White House could ever be as competent and idealistic as Bartlett's-- but a fantasy that resonated with American's yearning for government the way it "ought" to be.

Studio 60 is also a wish-fulfillment show, positing a network president who actually stands up for creative expression and freedom of speech, who goes to the mat for her producers, and who cares about quality and integrity at least as much as she does ratings and market share. But nobody outside of the television industry cares. Oh, sure, I wish there really were network execs like her, imposing a coward tax on advertisers for pulling out in the wake of the protest du jour. But in the end-- and this is me saying this-- it's just television. Viewers can only be expected to invest so much of themselves in a show about a sketch comedy show. These people are not fighting for education reform or keeping terrorists from blowing up the Golden Gate Bridge. They're performing "Pimp My Trike."

Bradley Whitford and Matthew Perry are outstanding, and Amanda Peet is also interesting. But Timothy Busfield is criminally under-utilized, Stephen Weber's corporate chairman hits only one note and cries out for some nuance, and none of the "big three" performers in the show-within-a-show seem as talented as we're told they are. We should never see any of the actual skits being performed-- they're forever doomed to be less funny than those concocted by cadres of cannibalisticly competitive writers and performers on real sketch comedy shows. The action should remain behind-the-scenes, and therein lies the problem. As great as the characters might be, as fantastic as the writing might be, the premise cannot sustain the life-or-death tone we've seen so far. This show needs to be more Ally McBeal, more Boston Legal. Sports Night worked because it was all about the funny. It took us behind the scenes to find humor in the characters, to laugh at the antics of a third-rated show on a third-rated network.

Unless you work in television, I question whether anyone can really empathize with all the hand-wringing about focus groups and market share and audience retention and how much of a pressure-cooker putting on a weekly sketch comedy show really is. Studio 60's crisis-laden tone comes off as the latest example of self-infatuated Hollywood navel-gazing. The writers, actors, and producers of the show eat and breathe show business. It's their entire world, and they seem to believe that viewers with no stake in the industry will care about it as much as they do. And by the way, I've got this great idea for a television show about the pressures and machinations behind the scenes creating software at a major software company.